Starlight
by DancingPhalangess
Summary: Written for prompt 'date night'. It's one neither Pepper, Tony, or anyone else in the restaurant that night would be forgetting in a hurry.


**Written for Pepperony week day 3- date night. Because I was so bored I was considering doing my uni work. **

She hadn't wanted to go. She'd felt dizzy and more than a little sick, but Tony had looked so proud of himself, because he'd actually _made reservations. _He was a fan of just showing up because they were Tony Stark and Pepper Potts, and there wasn't anywhere that would refuse them a seat (or the twice the bill tips eh would always leave). Pepper hated it.

But Tony had picked a quiet, not too well known place on the outskirts of the city, and she hadn't had the heart to tell him she'd rather stay in and order take-out. So she'd put on a dress, simple, black and sleeveless, because Tony had assured her that it wasn't posh enough for the red carpet.

The restaurant was nice. It was small, with a balcony spun with white string lights, like the Christmases she'd dreamed of when she was a child. They twisted around the tables, too, illuminating the whole place in a glow that cased them away from the shoppers milling the streets below.

And Tony was smiling like the sparkling was coming from her.

It felt like he'd pushed a thorn into her heart and twisted it deeply.

She stared down at the menu with blurred words she couldn't make out.

She'd always been a bad liar. It hadn't served her well growing up, when the older kids had shoved her to the front as lookout when they wanted to smoke, or swallow little pills that they tried to make her taste too. She'd wanted to at first, because they looked like sweets and the kids who ate them didn't care when they got moved again and had to pack their stuff into a plastic trash bag. But when she'd asked Rupert what they tasted like, he'd pushed her right up against the wall, the way the scary kids and grown-ups did, and told her she was never, _ever, _to even lick one. Or anything else they tried to give her.

She'd still wanted to, but now when they were pushed into her hand, she remembered the rough brick against her back, and the way her brother's face had been close enough to taste his breath, and they turned from candy to poison in her palm.

Pepper shook her head so the memory tumbled away. It had been happening a lot lately, snatches of her childhood floating back to her when she was in meetings, curled beside Tony in bed, or watching _Downtown Abbey _with Happy. Snatches that often had nothing to do with the situation. And most of the time, they made her want to cry.

When Pepper looked up again, she could see the thorn had stabbed Tony, too. Had he been talking to her?

The dizziness she thought she had shook began to creep in again.

"Pepper-"

He was looking at her like that, and she couldn't lie.

"I have to use the bathroom." It was true. The twinkling balcony was spinning now, the strings of lights blurring into one long stream, and the inside of her mouth was tingling with oncoming nausea. Still, the guilt tore alongside the thorn as she left him with the tremor of his own hands.

But the lights were pouring into her now, the stream burning so brightly she had to scrunch her eyes shut against it and stop, her own cool fingers pressing into her head. Or someone else's. It was hard to tell, because her hands were both numb and tingling, and when she opened her eyes all she could see was the light, like a star had fallen to earth and burst right before her.

And then it was collapsing in on itself, sucking her with it into spiralling darkness.

oOo

Tony had only been so terrified once in his life.

Not when he lost his parents, he grieved, obviously, but they were already dead. There was nothing any amount of panicking would have done. And he'd had a big enough circle, and bank account, so he would not have to fend for himself. Not in Afghanistan when there had been a car battery keeping shrapnel out of his heart. Not during any one of his countless missions where armies and terrorists had tried to blast him out of the sky with cannons, tanks and machine guns.

What had scared him as much as he was now was the projected image of Pepper's face twisted in the agony of her torture.

It wasn't twisted now. It was empty, but lifeless instead of peaceful and nestled in the crook of his elbow.

Somewhere, vaguely, he heard someone calling 911 and prayed to Gods he didn't believe in that she would kill him for it later. Pepper hated a fuss, hated even being asked about the dark rings under her eyes that were a permanent feature of working for him.

He wasn't an idiot. People fainted, it was a warm evening. It happened. But there had been the morning he'd woken up to JARVIS claiming he was late for his 10am meeting and she'd been scrunched beside him, still sleeping and nearly impossible to wake. And the day she'd worn flats instead of heels because she'd swayed on the sharp point of her stiletto. The afternoon she'd been missing for more than an hour, and he'd found her with red splashed through her eyes that she'd cast off as hay fever, but she was such a terrible liar.

"Pep," he pleaded, dull to the reassurances of the couple who told him the ambulance would be ten minutes. Ten minutes was too long. So was nine and eight and seven and _one. _

"Wake up, baby," he begged again, a plea as hopeless as _don't shoot. _

But her eyelids fluttered- or was it just the dancing of the stupid Christmas lights?

Then he heard her mutter: "_Dammit." _

"Pepper?"

"Hmmm," she murmured, her eyes opening properly and blinking at him, turning away from the lights.

"I had a plan." Her voice was fragile, like a losing game of Jenga. "I was going tell you with a glass of scotch in your hand while Happy was in the house_. _You were _supposed _to stay in tonight," she hissed, suddenly, and Tony didn't know whether to be scared of how little sense she was making, or relieved because she was mad at him again.

"Tell me what?" it came out so quietly, he couldn't be sure she had heard him at all, but she was struggling in his arms, pushing herself to sit up and he held on tight, tucking her against his chest because he didn't think his heart could take watching her fall like that again.

There were flocks around them suddenly, someone pushing a glass of water into Pepper's hand, complete with a straw, someone else telling her that the ambulance would be there soon and she wasn't to worry. She didn't look at all worried as her eyes rolled towards the sky. "_Really?_" she hissed so only he could hear her, and then to the patronising woman: "That will not be necessary."

"Pep-"

"I know what's wrong with me, Tony."

His heart slammed into his ribs and then dropped, tumbling right out of his body and into oblivion, leaving a gaping empty space that had been filled with her.

"Whatever it is, honey, I'm not going anywhere. You've put up with me for twelve years and you've sorted out every mess I've got myself into and you even managed to make a _relationship _work, and I love you."

She smiled, but it was shaking and hinted with sadness. "Well that's good to know."

Pepper sighed into his chest. She hadn't planned on embarrassment and fuss and an audience, but if there was anything she was good at it was calm and efficiency in situations that were anything but.

"Tony, I'm pregnant."

Their audience gasped, but Tony was silent. He was silent for so long that Pepper began to shuffle away, untangling himself from his arms before he let go.

"Are you sure?" His question stopped her when he still had a loose hold.

She shrugged, then nodded. "I've not been to the doctor yet, but I've done a home test, more than one, actually, so I'm fairly certain."

Then his arms were not loose anymore, they were tight and consuming and he was laughing into her hair. "God, Pep, I thought-"

She knew what he had thought. She had heard it in his voice.

"You're happy?" A flame of daring hope was beginning to kindle inside of her at the laughter, the strength of his hold.

"Sure I am. I'm not sure the kid's gonna be, but they'll learn to put up with me. You did."

Pepper laughed with him and rested her head, for a moment, on his shoulder. "What are we going to do about this?" she wondered aloud, because there were people beginning to snap picture on their phone, and even more who were watching them, applauding as if they really were at the theatre.

Tony shrugged. "We've had much worse press attention, we'll figure something out." Then he called out, loud enough for even the shoppers below to hear. "What do you mean it's not mine?!"

Pepper thumped him.


End file.
